HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT English lawyer and penologist, was born on Aug. 6, 1792, at Birmingham. He was a brother of Sir Rowland Hill. In 1819 he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. In 1832 he was elected one of the Liberal members for Kingston-upon-Hull, but he lost his seat at the next election in 1834. On the incorporation of Birmingham in he was chosen recorder; and in 1851 he was appointed commis sioner in bankruptcy for the Bristol district. In his charges to the grand juries, as well as in special pamphlets, he advocated many important reforms in the methods of dealing with crime. He was supported by his brother Frederick Hill (1803-96), whose Amount, Causes and Remedies of Crime, the result of his expe rience as inspector of prisons for Scotland, marked an era in the methods of prison discipline. Hill was a promoter of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and the originator of the Penny Magazine. He died at Stapleton, near Bristol, on June 7, 1872.
His principal works are Practical Suggestions to the Founders of Reformatory Schools _(1855) ; Suggestions for the Repression of Crime (1857), consisting of charges addressed to the grand juries of Birming ham; Mettray (1855) ; Papers on the Penal Servitude Acts (1864) ; Journal of a Third Visit to the Convict Gaols, Refuges and Reforma tories of Dublin (1865) ; Addresses delivered at the Birmingham and Midland Institute (1867) . See Memoir of Matthew Davenport Hill, by his daughters Rosamond and Florence Davenport Hill (1878).